A vegetable farmer in the Free State requested the Product Development Technology Station (PDTS) to design and manufacture a machine that will sort various sizes of tomatoes. This is needed to grade tomatoes for classification purposes.
This process was previously done by hand and the client, who farms near Petrusburg, wanted to speed up the sorting process and increase production capabilities.
In order to address these needs the PDTS created a concept and took inspiration from a sorting machine viewed in Bethulie. This included a sorting process that starts with a chute or conveyer channel where the tomatoes are deposited onto brush rollers that clean them, during which overhead nozzles spray a disinfectant onto it.
The tomatoes then move to foam rollers that dry them. Then they go onto a conveyor that moves them onto a rotating cone that enables the tomatoes to fall through different sized slots.
Finally, the produce is deposited into three different conveyer channels according to size. From here workers can pack them accordingly and they are graded in three sizes: small, medium and large.
The Tomato Sorter therefore allows production to increase as workers who used to sort tomatoes are now free to harvest vegetables and do other work. This in turn creates the opportunity for more work to be done.